(C) Minnesota Reformer This story was originally published by Minnesota Reformer and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Polls open in consequential Wisconsin spring election • Minnesota Reformer [1] ['Henry Redman', 'Christopher Ingraham', 'Jessica Kutz', 'Michelle Griffith', 'More From Author', '- April', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline'] Date: 2025-04-01 Wisconsin’s spring election takes place Tuesday, with voters across the state weighing in on the races for state Supreme Court and superintendent of schools, a constitutional amendment and local offices. Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. Voters who are already in line to vote when polls close should remain in line and will still be able to cast their ballots. Absentee ballots must be returned by the time polls close and can be returned to a voter’s polling place or municipal clerk’s office. Information on polling places can be found at MyVote.WI.gov. Hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites have already cast their ballots, surpassing the early vote turnout of the 2023 Supreme Court race when 1.8 million people voted. On the Monday before the election that year, more than 409,000 ballots had already been cast. This year, more than 644,000 votes have already been cast, with Dane and Milwaukee counties each seeing the most turnout. More than 100,000 votes have already been cast in both counties. While the lower turnout of spring elections means results usually come faster than in presidential elections, state law still doesn’t allow election officials to begin processing absentee ballots until polls open on Election Day. Last year, Republicans in the state Senate killed a bill that would have allowed absentee ballots to start being processed on the Monday before the election. This means that especially in Milwaukee, where all absentee ballots are processed and counted at one central count location, results may take longer to come in. Supreme Court race The race for Wisconsin Supreme Court is the most consequential on the ballot on Tuesday, with the ideological balance of the body up for grabs. Liberal-backed Dane County Judge Susan Crawford is taking on conservative-backed Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel. The winner will replace retiring Justice Ann Walsh Bradley. Wisconsin is holding the first statewide election in the country since President Donald Trump was elected last November. That opportunity to test the voting public’s mood, and the $20 million that Trump adviser Elon Musk has pumped into the race to support Schimel, has turned the race into a referendum on the first months of the second Trump administration. Musk appeared at a rally in Green Bay on Sunday night to advocate for Schimel, give $1 million to two attendees and hype up his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has been making drastic cuts to federal agencies and programs. Schimel has said he is running to remove partisanship from the Court and that if elected he would treat Trump like any other litigant in a case. But he also told a group of canvassers associated with Trump-aligned Turning Point USA that he’d be a “support network” for Trump on the Court and, the Washington Post reported, told a group of Republicans in Jefferson County that Trump was “screwed over” by the Court when it ruled against Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Democrats and Crawford’s campaign have accused Musk of attempting to buy a seat on the state Supreme Court. They point to Musk’s current litigation in Wisconsin challenging a state law that prevents Tesla from selling cars directly to consumers. Democrats have held People v. Musk town halls across the state where attendees said they were worried about DOGE’s cuts to Social Security, Medicaid and education. At the only debate between the two candidates in March, Crawford called her opponent “Elon Schimel.” Crawford has said if elected she’ll be a justice who seeks to protect the rights of all Wisconsinites while Schimel has said he’s running to counter the alleged partisanship of the Court since liberals won a majority in 2023. The race for Supreme Court has set the record for most expensive judicial campaign in U.S. history. The race recently surpassed the $100 million mark, nearly doubling the record set by Wisconsin’s 2023 Supreme Court election when more than $50 million was spent in the race between Justice Janet Protasiewicz and former Justice Dan Kelly. While the race has been nationalized, the winner will hold a deciding vote in cases that could decide how Wisconsin’s congressional maps are drawn, how pollution is regulated, the collective bargaining rights of the state’s workers and if Wisconsin women have the right to access an abortion. Superintendant of Schools Also on the ballot on Tuesday is the race for superintendent of schools. The race is between incumbent Jill Underly, supported by the state Democratic party, and Brittany Kinser, an education consultant who’s been backed by the state Republican Party. The two candidates appeared together at just one virtual forum, with Underly declining to attend a number of proposed events. Kinser has criticized Underly’s effort to change the standards used to assess student progress and advocated for more support for the state’s “school choice” programs including taxpayer-funded private school vouchers. Underly is endorsed by the state’s teachers union and says she will defend public schools against privatization efforts by school choice advocates such as Kinser. Voter ID amendment Voters will also weigh in on a proposed constitutional amendment to codify the state’s voter ID law. The Republican-authored proposal would require that voters provide a photo ID to register to vote, which is already the law. Republicans say the amendment is necessary to prevent the state Supreme Court from striking down the voter ID requirement. Republicans have increasingly used the constitutional amendment process in recent years as a way to shape state law, avoiding Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ veto. Like Minnesota Reformer, Wisconsin Examiner is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Wisconsin Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Ruth Conniff for questions: [email protected]. 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